Memory
by Omeganian
Summary: The Great Rift on Klendagon. The story of that shot fired.


Disclaimer: I own nothing you may recognize

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><p><strong>37 million years ago. Klendagon system.<strong>

Had a modern human looked at them, he would have hardly called them beautiful. A humanoid shape, two genders, but that's where the similarities ended. Multicolored skin of mostly reddish tones, eyes which saw well below the human frequencies, arms with six five jointed fingers, three jointed legs… all these are minor details.

And they didn't use sound for speech. Microwaves were their equivalent sense.

_Sorrow of Wind_ looked outside the windows. Six of the 30 km long barrels of the Great Weapon were visible. Twice as much were hidden by the structure of the defense station. All the resources they managed to get together without the mass relays went into these guns and the shipyards it defended. Along with millions upon millions of tons of antimatter.

They hoped it would be enough.

"Are you sure it will stop the Devastation Lords?" He asked the head of the project.

"Yes." Replied _Light in the Caldera_. "We have enough for millions of these creatures. They cannot come here directly; our distorters will stop them at a good distance. They will rue the day they attacked the _Dawn Life_."

Sorrow looked at the creature sitting behind them. It skin was off color, its face showed sorrow. No one was sure of its name. Had they been, there is no guarantee it would have been translatable to any human language.

"_Light of the Caldera_, are you sure it is wise to have him here? I know he wanted to see the ones who destroyed his homeland fall but… I feel uneasy."

"I am certain. It is his right. He is broken. It is the only favor we can do for him". They both turned toward checking the systems.

None of them noticed the nameless person's body shift for a moment. His skin changed its color.

He was triumphing.

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><p>"Devastation Lord in sight!" Came the signal from one of the crew.<p>

"One?" __Light in the Caldera__ looked at the screen. "Do they think so lowly of us? Very well. Fire gun 7."

"In a moment, sir. If we fire now, it might pass through and hit the world _Embrace and Wisdom_."

They all looked at the screen, where the giant starship was slowly moving toward the edge of the planet's disk. No one noticed the nameless one attach a small device to the controls.

"Now!" Both the body and the "voice" of _Light in the Caldera_ showed triumph.

A second later, however, it shifted to pure terror and despair.

An enormous streak of light, far faster than expected, burst out of the barrel. It connected with the ship and went on.

At the same time, the fuel indicator signaled empty.

"What… How?" At least ten of the creatures _shouted_.

"I do not know." Said the gunner. "Somehow, the systems fired the shot with all the fuel available. We are dead."

"For the glory of the Lords." Came a signal behind them.

Everyone turned. The nameless creature stood there.

"The Lords alone are worthy of existence. The sole purpose of others is to serve them. I served them until the last. I saved Lords. And you killed one!" Madness was visible in its stance. "The Lords might have spared you otherwise, but now they won't. Not even a memory of you shall remain!"

Before he could continue, a single shot by _Sorrow of Wind_ ended his life.

"How… How could he?" a single guard asked.

"We must have known too little about our enemies." They all looked at the displays, where the Devastation Lords were now appearing. Thousands of them. The doom of _Dawn Light_.

And yet, a tiny part of _Sorrow of Wind_ was triumphant. The nameless one was wrong when he said no memory of them shall remain. With the increased speed, the projectile still managed to hit the enemy and pass through, but it didn't quite clear the planet. Where it hit, an enormous shockwave propagated in a straight line throughout the surface and below.

Millions of cubic kilometers of rock were pulverized. An enormous glowing gash was opened upon the body of the planet.

As _Sorrow of Wind_ looked, he knew that the gash will cool down, will close, but an enormous scar will be left. It will last for a long time. Perhaps many more races will fall. Perhaps hundreds, thousands of civilizations. But, sooner or later, so will their enemies.

And through all that and beyond, their memory will endure.


End file.
